Minimizing signaling overhead is desirable in wireless communications. This applies in particular to feedback transmissions and, in particular to feedback of channel quality, as measured by, for example, a signal-to-noise ratio or other channel quality index. A mobile unit, for example, may determine the quality of one or more channels and transmit this information to a base station, enabling the base station to select a set of best channels for communication at a given time.
In previously proposed schemes called “best-M” schemes, overhead for quality information feedback is reduced by reporting quality measures for a number M out of all transmission bands having the best quality.